Michael Jordan has been recognized as the greatest basketball player that has ever lived for an entire generation. At the peak of his prime, he was possibly the most famous person in the world, at least for those who consumed media and sports. For someone with such a focus on winning, he appeared to many to have won at the game of life. But when the documentary about his final years playing in Chicago came out in 2020, he quickly became a meme and a parody for his “took that personally” mentality. He was scrutinized for obsessing over losing even the smallest gambling game.
Maybe one day, Jordan will be become a mythical figure like the Greek king Sisyphus. In that tale, the gods cursed Sisyphus to roll a boulder up a steep hill for eternity. But the Jordan myth in a mindful context may not be about Jordan’s legendary basketball genius or his curse of competitive fire burning too hot. It may turn out to be that we look at him playing games throughout his life to the point that life itself was something to be won. The lesson might be that life is not a game. We all may come to see that the desire to win or to have respect or glory or anything in particular is a game that we have created ourselves, but it doesn’t really exist. As Jordan created stories in his mind to motivate himself, we all create entire stories that only serve to distract.
There is no game. There is nothing to win or lose, and so nothing to savor or suffer.
